NASCAR Cook Out 400 takeaways: Joey Logano's late-season surge continues with nail-biting Richmond win

Many counted out Logano midway through the season, and rightfully so, as he struggled to put together a winning pace. While he and the entire Ford camp have some work to do on the intermediates, he is once again proving the doubters wrong and making some noise with just two races left before the start of the Chase.

Austin Cindric has much-needed top-five finish

Cindric entered the night just 29 points above the provisional Chase cutline, failing to record a single top-10 finish in a points race since he came home ninth at Watkins Glen on May 10. After a solid third-place run at Richmond, Cindric has moved up to 15th and is 57 points to the good.

He started the race 23rd and appeared to be facing an uphill battle once again, but he surged all the way up to the top five after the first round of green-flag stops halfway through the 70-lap opening stage. From there, he maintained his track position and finally left with something to be pleased with.

Chase Elliott ends top-10 drought with encouraging run

NASCAR's most popular driver shockingly had not finished inside the top 10 since May 31 at Nashville. Not only did he end that nine-race spell on Saturday night, but his fifth-place finish was his first top-five since his most recent win at Texas on May 3.

While Elliott led the charge for Hendrick Motorsports, Kyle Larson (sixth), William Byron (ninth) and Alex Bowman (10th) placed all four HMS cars inside the top 10. The organization still has some room for improvement, especially compared to the Toyotas and the Penske Fords of Logano and Ryan Blaney, but Elliott's drought-ending run spearheaded an encouraging performance overall for Rick Hendrick's group.

Austin Dillon's bid for historic three-peat at Richmond dashed

All eyes were on Dillon entering the weekend as the two-time defending winner at Richmond. Unlike those consecutive wins when Dillon established control and set the bar for the rest of the field, he was trapped at least one lap down for most of the night on Saturday and finished 19th.

He showed top-10 speed at the similarly shaped Iowa Speedway one week earlier, but it did not translate to the 0.75-mile short track in Virginia and kept him from joining Hall of Famers Richard Petty, David Pearson and Bobby Allison as the only drivers to win three straight at Richmond.